​Goal is to find "a world-class leader for a world-class institution"
AMHERST -- June 17, 2015:UMass Trustees today voted to create a Search Committee to assist in the process of selecting a successor to UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan, who will become president of the five-campus UMass system on July 1.
Trustees appointed a 24-person committee consisting of UMass Lowell faculty, students, administrators and alumni as well as representatives from the Lowell community, members of the UMass Board of Trustees and other UMass officials. The Committee will be chaired by R. Norman Peters, a member of the Board of Trustees.
"This is an important task," said Victor Woolridge, chairman of the UMass Board of Trustees. "We know that leaders make a difference and in some cases make an enormous difference -- and anyone who wants to fully appreciate the impact of leadership would be well-advised to visit UMass Lowell."
The Search Committee's role is to select finalist candidates and advance those finalists to the President, who makes a recommendation to the Board of Trustees, which then votes on the President's recommendation.
The Committee will seek input on the qualifications and characteristics that are important in a new Chancellor. The Search Committee will hire a search firm to guide the process, will schedule a public forum to solicit feedback from the campus, the community and other stakeholders, and will publicize the position in other ways as it develops a candidate pool. The search panel will interview candidates before making its recommendation.
To facilitate communication with the general public, and to make it easy for interested parties to obtain information about the progress of the search, a special website has been created at https://www.massachusetts.edu.
"The search must be comprehensive, transparent and deliberate. The new Chancellor will have big shoes to fill," Chairman Woolridge said. "Our goal is to find the best person to take the torch from Chancellor Meehan and hit the ground running and not just maintain UMass Lowell's momentum, but take the campus to new heights."
Chairman Woolridge said the Board's goal was to conduct a search that was "both thorough and expeditious."
Chancellor and President-Elect Meehan said: "UMass Lowell has a strong impact on the region and beyond, and therefore it is important we find the right person to lead it."
President-Elect Meehan, a UMass Lowell graduate, has led the Lowell campus since July 2007. Under his eight years of leadership, the campus has grown by every measure of higher education. Enrollment is up 48 percent to more than 17,000 while selectivity and diversity simultaneously increased; 10 new buildings have opened; and its 27-spot rise in the academic rankings in the last five years is among the fastest in the nation. The university is also ranked among the top in the nation for graduates' return on investment.
"UMass Lowell is a true engine of transformation and excellence, and the task of this Committee is to assist the President and the UMass Board of Trustees by identifying outstanding candidates for the chancellorship of this campus," said Peters, who also chairs the Board's Advancement Committee and is the founding partner of the Worcester-based law firm Peters & Sowyrda.
"We intend to perform this task at a very high level; we intend to do it openly and efficiently. I am confident that our efforts will yield a world-class leader for this world-class institution," said Peters.
"Our expectation is that strong candidates will emerge from near and far, that we will see both traditional and non-traditional candidates -- and our job will be to identify and advance the very best of those candidates," Peters added.
In addition to Trustee Peters, the members of the Search Committee are:
- Co Chairman:R. Norman Peters
Member of the UMass Board of Trustees and founding partner of Peters &Sowyrda - Co Chairman:JohnPulichino'67, '14 (H)
Chairman and CEO, Group III International Ltd. - Lisa Abdallah
Chairwoman and associate professor, School of Nursing, UMass Lowell - Lawrence Carpman
Member of the UMass Board of Trustees and Partner, Northwind Strategies - Michael Carter
Chairman and associate professor, Department of Economics, and president of the Faculty Senate, UMass Lowell - Julie Chen
Vice provost for research, UMass Lowell
James Christopher
UMass Lowell Student Government Association president - Jerry Colella '78
President and CEO, MKS Instruments - Nancy Donahue '13 (H)
Community leader and co-founder of Merrimack Repertory Theatre - Robert Giles
Professor of physics and director, Submillimeter Wave Technology Lab, UMass Lowell - Anita Greenwood
Dean of the Graduate School of Education, UMass Lowell - Charlie Hoff '66, '04 (H)
Chairman, The Hoff Foundation Inc. - John F. Kennedy '70
Former president and CFO, Nova Ventures Corp. - Margaret Koziel
Assistant vice provost of clinical and translational research, UMass Medical School, and co-director of the Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2) - Scott Latham
Interim dean of the Manning School of Business, UMass Lowell - Charlotte Mandell
Vice provost for undergraduate education, UMass Lowell - Stephen McCarthy
Professor of plastics engineering, UMass Lowell, and co-director of the Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2) and the Center for Irish Partnerships - Carol McDonough
Professor of economics, UMass Lowell, and president of the Massachusetts Society of Professors Lowell - Keith Mitchell
Associate professor of English, UMass Lowell - Amanda Robinson
Student trustee-elect, UMass Lowell - Dana Skinner
UMass Lowell director of athletics - Kumble Subbaswamy
Chancellor, UMass Amherst - Marcellette Williams
UMass senior vice president for academic and student affairs and international relations - Margaret Xifaras
Member of the UMass Board of Trustees and attorney, Law Offices of Lang, Xifaras & Bullard.
Contact: Jan Brogan 617-287-4027